PGA Tour: Q-School Finals, Here and There: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Only exhibitions to keep the bank accounts of our Tour favourites ticking over this week, not to mention the ridiculous practice of rewarding players with world ranking points for finishing last. The rich get richer and screw the rest of you.

2).But many of "the rest of you" are contesting Q-School Finals, both for the PGA Tour and the European Tour, presumably with all sorts of putters, long and short, some anchored, most not.
(Typical bl00dy holier-than-thou reaction from Golf's ruling bodies; to paraphrase the great Geoffrey Green writing about Billy Wright's hapless efforts against Puskas and his great Hungarian Team:
"Like a fire engine going to the wrong fire".
More elsewhere no doubt.)

3).Unlike the highly paid circle jerks being conducted in Sun City and California, Q-School is the ultimate raw competition, with even more spice being added to this week's PGA Tour Finals in that 2012 is the last year Tour wannabes can earn cards via Q-School. Hence an invasion of golfers from around the World, anxious to take this last chance at Golf's Powerball (or should that be Rocketballz?) Lottery.
So, alongside Camilo Villegas and Robert Karlsson - who saw them enduring the indignity of Q-School nine months ago? - we'll have a motley crew of players with World Rankings high enough to make this competition stronger than some "opposite field" events.

4).Ross Fisher, Marcus Fraser, Alex Noren, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Gonzo, Wattel etc, etc, are all trying their luck alongside old lags such as:
Aussies O'Hern, Pampling, Matt Jones, Goggin, Coles
Europeans Chopra, Johnson, Cejka, Lemke
Americans Vaughn Taylor, Chez Reavie, Pernice, Mayfair, Slocum, Trahan, Blanks, Hamilton, Micheel

5).Russell Knox will be there, as will Gary Christian as well as misfiring can't-miss prospects such as Danny Lee, Macpherson, Cantlay, Kraft, Horschel, Swafford and Oliver Fisher. Jamie Lovemark, Trevor Murphy and John Peterson didn't even get this far, having been gonged at Stage 2.
Apart from purely jingoistic interests, the player I'll be pulling for is Patrick Reed, veteran of having Monday-qualified for six PGA Tournaments this year - that's tough to do, and he more than almost anyone deserves his place in the sun.

6).In Europe, of course, a few years ago we'd've been expecting guys like Nick Dougherty, Rhys Davies and Ross McGowan to be competing for Ryder Cup places. But here they are, all likely to come up short in their quest for an ET card - Dougherty (and hot-shot American Peter Uihlein) way short. Oliver Wilson another with work to do.

7).And it's been a lousy few weeks for Europeans who tried to earn a PGA Tour card as well as contest European Tour Q-School - all these will have tenuous status if any for 2013: Mathias Gronberg, Andrew Marshall, Tim Sluiter, Pablo Martin, Wallace Booth, Chris Devlin, Sam Walker and Rikard Karlberg.

8).I read an interesting NYT piece on Ginger Baker ("once voted the rock star least likely to survive the sixties") yesterday with a nice turn of phrase: "Mr.Baker says that life is a two-way street in which he has the right of way".
Couldn't help feeling that Tiger Woods is just like that - can you imagine him turning up for anyone else's "World Challenge"?
It is a sign of the times that Tiger's event doesn't have the allure of days gone by, with the purse being reduced by $1M from $5M to $4M; the poor sucker who trails in last will only bank $120,000 instead of last year's $140,000 money for nothing. No reduction in owgr points though, apparently.

9).With the annual complaint by Rory that he really must cut down on his late-season schedule next year, his provisional 2013 schedule actually removes at least one event from the heart of his programme, Jack Nicklaus's Memorial Tournament. No favourites then as he also continues to exclude Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill from his calendar, despite Arnie's threats of gbh to Rors.
He'll certainly be missing Kapalua and so apparently will Woods, Mickelson, Els, Donald and Garcia. Hopefully Rose and Poulter will be there, but this tournament is really struggling with the stars staying away in droves, and 2013 being the final year of title sponsor Hyundai's contract.

10).Let's conclude with a thought about European Tour members playing on the PGA Tour:
Is it possible that this autumn will actually be the low point for the ET and it will be re-energised by those who actually play the Tour regularly in 2013?
Donaldson, Lowry and Ramsay all flirted with PGA Tour Q-School and opted to stay home, while some at least of the ET veterans playing this week will disappoint at Q-School and return to Europe. One imagines they'll join Paul Casey, for one, while at least one or two of Colsaerts, Hanson, Kaymer and Lynn will struggle.
Last time I checked, the Walker Cup and Ryder Cup were both in Europe and one feels the future is brighter than even O'Grady likes to paint it.
(And with this week's Powerball at $500M, I'll have cash left over to sponsor a couple of events. After having acquired Pompey of course.)

Don't think he is, pd, just noticed that - I wish they'd report who'd flunked out; I would have expected him to have given it a go today, even if just to secure web.com status which might one day be worth something to him.

Slow starts from Knox and Oli Fisher.

Bowditch leading overnight but decidedly wobbling in Round 6. Already +3 and can't afford to drop more than two more strokes.

And now Karlsson showing that frailty we talked about yesterday.

Oliver Fisher needs to get his skates on, the rest of Europe increasingly out of touch, though Norlander still in with a remote chance.

Nice, Ross Fisher and Billy Horschel leading, I like that...
Camillo only one or two shots shy of the cutline with just 3 holes left....

This could be a very big win for Fish if he can hold on, could give him the confidence in America that he seems to sorely need.

And his namesake needs to birdie his final hole, Norlander also knocking at the door.

Congrat's to Fish, Karlsson, and Norlander too. Sadly looks even money that Oliver Fisher will just miss out - looks like Top 26 right now (then exclude Fritsch who is double-dipping)

Valiant last ditch effort by Cejka still in progress but Tour vets Camilo, Slocum and Vaughn Taylor will all miss out - along with Knox, Noren etc.

Fingers crossed for Oliver Fisher.

Heartbreak for Oliver Fisher who finished one stroke, and one place - 27th when 26th would have been good - away from a Tour card. Big decision for him now.

Q-School was one by a man called Dong, which sounds unfortunate but not as much as if his last name was Head.

Ross Fisher was second, with Karlsson 14th and Henrik Norlander in 22nd.

Alex Cejka finished like a train but the buffers came too early, and Russell Knox paid dearly for a lousy start. They both retain some "conditional status" on Tour but presumably Knox, at least, will play a full web.com schedule.
Noren also has a web.com card at his disposal and imagine Chopra does too. Conditional web.com for Wattel, Mikkelson, Lemke, Johnson, Jaeger and Wiedergruen.

Gonzo and RC-B left early, the two of them plus Noren and Wattel, being a poor advert for playing in Dubai on Sunday, flying across about 12 time-zones, trying to familiarise themselves to two courses they'd never seen on Tuesday and playing six high pressure, deathly slow competitive rounds starting Wednesday.

But if they're good enough they'll qualify for the Tour via the Peter Hanson route, if not the US's loss is Europe's gain.

Speshully for you kwini ...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vcmfCXwAFs4

Very nice gael,
Was initially hoping some of those gowns were going to be discarded (tho not in all cases), but no strip-o-card from gael, just wholesome commercialism!

kwinigolfer wrote:Very nice gael,
Was initially hoping some of those gowns were going to be discarded (tho not in all cases), but no strip-o-card from gael, just wholesome commercialism!

Just trying to get you into the mood for some much looked forward to christmas shopping ... Chicago style ... kwini

gael,
Very thoughtful!

Any buzz in your neck of the woods about your native sons? Whether Ramsay will hope to reach the PGA Tour via the Special Temporary Membership route or whether Knox has any intentions beyond a year of hard grind on the web.com circuit?

Chicago style?

They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He schendsh one of yoursh to the hoshpital, you schend one of hisch to the morgue. That'sch the Chicago way.

Allegedly.

kwinigolfer wrote:gael,
Very thoughtful!

Any buzz in your neck of the woods about your native sons? Whether Ramsay will hope to reach the PGA Tour via the Special Temporary Membership route or whether Knox has any intentions beyond a year of hard grind on the web.com circuit?

None that I'm aware of kwini. Don't know if you have the link but this site ...

http://www.scottishgolfview.com/

... is excellent for keeping up to date with the 'local stuff'. If it's there, Colin Farquharson will post it!

gaelgowfer wrote:Speshully for you kwini ...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vcmfCXwAFs4

Good grief! What did I just watch? Sooooo much cheese and saccharine. Pass the mind bleach.